AMD FX-8150 Conclusion

Benchmark tests should always be taken with a grain of salt. It's difficult to try and isolate the performance difference a single component in a computer system makes, especially when it's necessary to compare across different manufacturers and platforms. Complicating the matter is the fact that benchmarks change, a manufacturer may change the technical details of a product, and the retail price may change as well. So please use this review as just one piece of information, and do your research before making a buying decision.

AMD fans have been awaiting the Bulldozer for months, and while it represents a significant performance improvement over Thuban, I'm disappointed with its overall performance, especially the memory bandwidth and single-core performance. Prior to Sandy Bridge, the FX-8150 would have been a very competitive processor; now, the best you can say is that performance-wise it's as good, overall, as a Core i5 2500K. Except that the Intel processor costs about $35 less: and that's a sore point, because historically AMD processors tend to beat Intel in a "bang for the buck" competition due to their lower prices.

As of November 2011, the previous-generation "Thuban" 1100T six-core processor sells for a mere $190 while Bulldozer costs $269.99 at Newegg, so AMD fans will want to carefully consider if two more cores are worth another $64 and a new motherboard, especially given that the per-core performance is virtually the same between the Bulldozer and Thuban cores.

We can hope that Windows 8 and upgraded applications and utilities that use the new FX instructions will make it more competitive, and I'd expect these things right about the time Ivy Bridge become available.

Pros:

+ First consumer eight-core processor
+ Officially supports 4GHz-plus turbo speeds and DDR3-1866 memory
+ An FX system has 42 PCI-E lanes as opposed to the 24 lanes of a Sandy Bridge system
+ 990FX chipset supports NVIDIA SLI. Finally.
+ AMD finally has a 32nm processor with good overclocking

Cons:

- Requires a new Socket AM3+ motherboard
- Single core performance has remained static
- Full performance requires Windows 8 system and applications that use its new instructions
- Overall similar performance to Core i5 2500K, but at a higher price

Comments

This was suppose to be AMD's next step up.. It looks like they missed the step and fell all the way down the landing.. It is a good chip, No Doubt.. But it is not the Great Chip that we expected.. The 8130 was a bust before it started.. thanks for not releasing that one. But the 8150 was the next step up and well.. Like most AMD chips of today.. I guess its okay. but it makes me wish now I would have bet on INtel instead of The Bulldozer.. Sorry. Guys.. I am usually not this down on things but it is really disappointing that it didn't kick the Llama's Axx.

It looks like the benchmark test did the dumping here. His opinion is every bit as important as yours is, and I don't blame him for being disappointed (as I am as well). I was also betting on (rooting for) AMD, but it looks like the win is just not in their column this time.

The perspective that needs to be gained here is that he has as much right to his opinion as you do to yours without being labeled as "dumping all over it". You work for AMD or something?

If you bought an AM3+ motherboard then you bet on the bulldozer. Granted you can still use a phenom chip on the motherboard but the main reason people bought the AM3+ was for the future bulldozer chip. It is disapointing that the fx 8150 did not do as well.

I am also disappointed big time. I have been using a core 2 quad for a couple of years and was planning on upgrading this winter. I was hoping for the Bulldozer (I always root for the underdog), but it looks like I'll be going Sandy Bridge.

I totally agree. I just ran benchmarks on this chip after spending about 1200 on the best possible setup to configure this on, and it was barely faster than my 1100t. Very disapointed. After years of repping for the underdog, I think I'm calling it quits. Time to sell this setup and build a 990 extreme.

It's too bad. That's a lot of money to spend on an "oops". I was really hoping AMD had a great CPU this time around. Their stuff has always been good, but has seemed to lose its edge. Personally, I don't much care for Intel and look at them as the bullies on the block. Oh well, maybe next time.

so far i've been really impressed with the chip battlefield 3 in % cpu usage barely tickles the 8120 you could run the game twice and still have enough left over for antivirus defrag or god knows what else. And yes i am a little disappointed with its gaming bench tests i read in PC Format. But still its doing me really really well.

Which is why you shouldn't pay too much attention to benchmark results, unless you're doing stuff like video transcoding all day long.

My "Intel system" is an overclocked Core i7-3960X CPU and two GTX580 video cards in SLI. My "AMD system" is an overclocked FX-8150 and a single Radeon 6950 video card.

With a 27", 1920x1200 monitor, I can't see any difference in any of the games I play between one system and the other. Sure, I can measure frame rate differences with benchmarks, but these aren't noticeable in actual game play.

The situation would likely be different were I running, say, a triple-monitor setup. But how many people actually do?

hey in your windows experience index what is your bulldozer processor sub score ....i was thinking of buying this processor i am using MSI 890GXM - G65 mother board it has AM3+ socket so ....please help !!!!

Im using the 8150 and it scores on Windows index at 7.8, and it pisses me off, cuz im running the ASUS Crossair V and 2 8990 cards and that is the only thing holding me back! BF3 runs @ 120 to 150 FPS, and plays perfect, but for the money I put out I wanted 7.9 across the board!

Yes Very happy with the CPU. My i7 is way better machine, but for the money i put out net to the money for the i7, i would rather spend the money on AMD. They will hit the mark, they are still a very good CPU.

You don't get the other 40%; the other commenter is simply noting that Windows' built-in "Experience Index" is a crappy indicator of overall system performance. Well, at best only a very rough indicator. In other words the test is written in such a way that it doesn't use all the performance of which your CPU is capable.

I have to agree with you, I feel that some of the reviews for this processor have been very biased indeed, us AMD boys & girls know that, AMD processors are built for multitasking first and GHz second. I have been blown away by my build tonight, and I am so looking forward to adding my solid stare hard drive to finish it off. It really does Rock, also someone on here said it scored 7.2 in the Windows 7 performance test, in fact on my system, with no over clocking I have a score of 7.7...

Also its my first build with all AMD, AMD chipset, processor and the new AMD performance memory 16gb's worth, all in all only cost me £350 for the mainboard, memory and processor and £100 for the ATI 6850 gcard and another £150 for the 256GB solid state hard drive...

If this was an I7 build it would have cost near £1000 and its not even a real 8 core processor...

See you still PAYED more then an 8150 build, if I wanted intel I would have brought intel, however being an AMD fan, I will stick with the best... Multitasking with an AMD system is way better then Intel, I have seen both working side by side, hit 8 or 9 items on intel and watch the judder, AMD does not do that, remember they was the first CPU company to do away with the bottle neck bus system Intel use, Intel learnt a hell of a lot to get where they are today, most of it from AMD...

Actually not: a decent 9x0 Mobo ($100) and a fx-8150 ($205) cost more than a 2500k ($185)+decent z77 Mobo ($110).And you need a $100 H100 or a custom loop to reach 4.6GHz with the fx, when a 2500k does it with a $30 Hyper 212.

I can't even sell my fx-8120: it's such a failure than nobody wants one! Even at 120 bucks!

I will never buy Intel, I love to multitask... Simples and the lower spec intel cannot do what the 8150 can, I have always said a bench mark does not really test a processor to the full, if you look at the way a system handles, like playing music, while playing a game and having google open, also downloading a large file, without any lag, thats what I want, and I have it so thanks, keep rolling off Intel prices all you like, however please read these next few words, I am AMD fan!!! ;)

why does every one bust on products when there first benchmarks come out. bulldozer is a brand new design. non of the software is designed to tap in to its potential and its brand new. give it a month or two after the release of windows 8 and bulldozer should see a 10-15% increase in performance. plus there is the fact that the 26ook has been out for half a year. its had a much longer time to fix issues and bugs then the few week old bulldozer.

Bwah hah hahahaha! That's funny! So you think that this processor will mysteriously grow to become 10-15% more powerful in these benchmarks all by itself? The software changes, not the hardware. A year from now the Bulldozer processor will perform approximately the same on this software.

Well, that's what AMD says should happen, and some web sites that have tested with the developer Win 8 have seen some upticks in benchmark scores. Since each Bulldozer "module" shares cache and instruction decoding resources, it's faster to run two threads on two separate modules rather than two threads on the same module. Windows 8's scheduler will be "Zambezi aware" and try to schedule threads on the least-used module.

It remains to be seen if this strategy will have any real-world impact, but benchmarks will certainly improve if they're multi-threaded.

Of course that's what AMD says, it only makes sense to claim performance in an Operating System that doesn't yet exist to the public. Windows 8 is still at least 1-2 years away from release, and by the time it's public you can bet that Intel will have surpassed Bulldozer by a longshot.

I thought it was the opposite. That Windows 8 would try to load the modules up, which would then free up other modules to be deactivated and allow for optimal Turbo Core clocking. My understanding is that with the current scheduler, all of the modules remain active, and Turbo mode doesn't end up being used at all.

I hope they pull a rabbit with Piledriver. The decision to focus on clockspeed rather than shortening the pipeline seemed like a strange plan.

The longer pipe thing seems like a bit of a Pentium 4ish move doesn't it? Maybe they should have named it the NEXTBURST arch. There are a few design decisions that seemed odd to me too. How do these CPUs perform in the server space?

not sure if i can put links in here so i'll just say its on toms hardware. Microsoft has already released the amd bulldozer hot fix which brings performance to proper levels using the (SMT) scheduling features correctly. You can gain the hotfix for windows 7 on request from microsoft.

Your comments of 'bias' make me laugh - especially when you clearly don't know what 'faster' means or have any concept of how many Phenom II processors exist at varying speeds. We test the product, publish the results, and that's that. Then we give people like you access to them, for free. Still, you ignorantly believe we're going to report negative results that don't exist for a product supplied to us knowing we must maintain a long-term relationship with the sponsor. Quite silly, when you think about.

Your build was not upto the task, please tell me you sourced your own mainboard rather than using the stock one sent. I never use stock, I pick and choose the best, which can give the processor an edge, never been a fan of MSI, they seem a bit slow for some reason, love ASUS and my new system is built on an ASUS board using AMD performance memory, its the first build, I have had where all the processing power, GPU and chipset have all been sourced from 1 company... It can make a big difference!

I was trying to find the chap who quoted that his Windows 7 performance score at stock was 7.2, I do not believe in overclocking, why damage a system to get another 10% out of it. My system at stock scores 7.7 with the same for memory. So build quality can make such a difference even you should know that.

And dont take it to heart, I did not mean to offend, just could not understand why your scores were lower!

The author gives a complete list of hardware components and test settings used in the Test Methodology section. You might not understand why our scores were lower, but because you didn't mention a single specification for your system you're testing or which benchmark tests you ran there's no way to tell if you're even testing apples to apples.

What, you think there's a better AM3+ motherboard than the ASUS Crosshair that AMD supplied? Seriously: you think AMD would supply a motherboard that would show their new CPU in anything but the best possible light?

You claim you've built a system where the "processing power, GPU, and chipset have all been sourced from 1 company." Well, let's see: I was using a motherboard with an AMD 890FX chipset, and AMD FX-8150 CPU, and an AMD Radeon video card. Did you even read this review?

We always test with the latest BIOSes available at the time of testing. If you check the results you'll see that both the ASUS and MSI motherboard are turning in virtually identical scores at stocks speeds, so I feel pretty confident about the results.

Obviously the Bulldozer CPUs were brand new at the time of these tests, and vendors have have more than six months since then to fine-tune their BIOS code. I imagine if I retested today with the current BIOSes the scores would be somewhat higher.

Now thats an idea... What with software updates and firmware updates... Could you run a retest now? have you still got the rig or do you have to send them back?

As I said somewhere else, someone said they got 7.2 on the WIn 7 check, but I am getting 7.7 at stock speeds... Might be worth a follow up, how about running it with Windows 8 so we can see what a difference we may get, as AMD say it does run better with WIN 8, however saying that I am very happy with the way my system is running, its a very nice processor which I feel will be more future proof then others. ;)

You do realize that testing these products requires A LOT of time, right? It takes many hours just to build the systems and prep them for testing, and then we've got to complete all of the benchmarks. Just retesting could consume an entire weekend.

We use these systems for several different projects, and one motherboard could end up being rebuilt into serveral different test configurations. Additionally, the author just left on travel for the next few weeks, and already has a project waiting for his return.

I have the Black Edition 8 core Bulldozer processor and anyone who says it's crap either 1; doesn't have one, 2; wish they had one 3; doesn't know what they are talking about! 8 Cores! Unlocked and Unleashed! My machine is faster than a rocket and all of you haters that can't afford one or afford to put it on a respectable motherboard are obviously full of envy! Have fun with your little CPU's because you don't have squat on mine!!

The optimizations AMD is talking about work like this: since each Bulldozer module has shared resources, if there's only one core running in a module, it can use _all_ the cache and other resources. So if you have two threads, it's faster to run each thread on a separate module rather than run both threads on the same module, since then you'd have two cores each with the full module resources available rather than two cores sharing the resources of one module.

Considering how much of a good job MS is doing wrecking Windows, I don't know anyone in my circle who is planning on "upgrading" to Windows 8. So far it looks like it's going to be another Vista.

Imagine making a tablet version of Windows that won't run Windows software....well, you don't have to imagine any more because MS pulled it off. What a bunch of great guys. (I hope they know what they can do with their ribbon)

You are right in some ways. The ribbon looks like it's there to stay. Never liked it, never will. Even in Office you can't get rid of it, only hide it until you need a menu function. I suppose there could be third party apps that will help out making the start menu a little better (I like the search in the W7 start menu, and the functionality of the XP start menu). They likely have not addressed the problems with the W7 windows all opening on top of each other and not remembering their last size (I'm running 3rd party apps to correct that). Even with those minor little problems I still liked W7. I'll hold off on W8 until I'm satisfied I can change it to what I like. Metro may be great for a tablet (even if it won't run Windows software) but personally I'm not interested in any of that UI on a desktop. I'm all for "under the hood" upgrades, but it seems to me like they are ruining the GUI even though they say you can default to a "more traditional desktop", but it turns out to be traditional in appearance only. Of course everything could be fixed by adding a magical "Use Traditional Desktop" check box that actually defaulted to a real XP/7-ish GUI, but for some reason it seems that it is beyond Microsoft's programmers skills.

I think this is a fine chip. It performs admirably against the newest Intel chips. Competition is good, and it looks like AMD has beat Intel (with clockspeed) with a consistent 4.2GHZ stock clock speed on a 4-core processor(and turbo on top of that), and they have released their 8-core processor, whereas Intel is still at 6-cores.

Now we wait to see how much prices of previous generation AMD hardware drops...

The price of previous generation AMD chips has plummeted. When I first reviewed the 6-core Phenom II X6 1100T, it was priced at a then-competitive $269.99; now, Newegg sells it for $189.99. At this price it's a screaming deal and IMO represents the best bang for the buck in the AMD lineup.

Not be nitpicky, but... Okay, it's entirely nitpicky, but nevertheless:

The 1090T is $20 dollars cheaper than the 1100T (at Newegg), and only .1GHz slower, but it's still a Black Edition, and I'd venture that the overclocking is not that much better, if at all better, between the two. On top of this, the older releases of Phenom IIs are regularly seeing $10-$15 promo-code sales at Newegg, dropping their prices even further. $114.99 dollars for Phenom II x4 965 or (for a current example) $159.99 for 1090T is much more justifiable than spending $190 on an 1100T when ~$20-30 extra will get you a 2500K.

Why is windows 8 required? I'm almost positive windows 7 or XP will support software that is compiled to use the new CPU instructions... just have to make sure the OS supports the number of cores and number of CPUs that you have.

Because AMD B..S.. us telling us "in the future...bla bla...Windows 8...".Future is SB-E and Ivybridge.FX8150 is already smashed up by the 2600k.It will be funny to see it burried by sb-e and IB!Despite of this actual fact, I am bloody sorry, 'cos going the way it goes, Intel wil have monopoly for middle and high end CPUs within a couple of years and prices will reach the sky.BTW, unless you are a hardcore OC'er using Ln2 and DICE, I really don't see the point of buying a FX. More watt, less power!

hey fanboi, a few reviewers already did some prelim tests with Win8 and found 2%-15% increases depending on the app. But I guess everything you don't know is B..S..? Can you come run my business for me? Your logic seems very good ;-) BTW I hope you get your monopoly -- It'll be good for you right? lol .. some people should be allowed to speak.

What an agressive answer! Yep, fanboy... Have a Sb and a PhII and 2 AMD/ATI cards... Which means I am 75% AMD fanboy and 25% Intel fanboy, you funny!I love AMD and like Intel, but their BD is a FAIL. And when windows 8 will be out (I am not talking about developer version for "experts" like you, but retail, you know, for "normal" PPL), BD will be crushed by SB-E and IB. That's fact, it is already crushed by 2xxK series.You think I like monopoly? Well,that's the end of competition, and competition is good for customers, lowering prices and bringing better products.I think your "expertise" lacks judgement, lol.

I dont like the ne intel proccesors in oder to not be bottlenecked on a sli or crossfire configuration you have to oc the proccesor to at least 4.8ghz also you cant use memory at higher frequency than 1333 if you want to keep your waranty too bad i didnt know that before after getting the ram oc'ed i had a chip burn out 2 months after buying and i couldnt send it back to newegg called intel and they said using ram at higher frequency than 1333 voids the guaranty so here i am now with 1500$ piece of equipment needing a new proccesor thanks intel for #ing me up and not telling me in advance..btw incase your wondering i had this watercooled witha 1.4volt vcore since i coulnt get 4.8 without it so # intel for doing this to me at least my amd set up hasnt given problems such as this bull#

You didn't say what processor you're using, but if it's one of the new Sandy Bridge chips, 1.4 is very high and that's likely what killed your CPU. There are numerous reports of this online, and another reason why you should always do your research before overclocking, especially on a new chip.

You told them you were overclocking? If your CPU dies, you just send it in. Put a note with it that says "it just died". What more do they need?

However, I have to point out that if you are overclocking (as I am) it's up to YOU to take responsibility for what you're doing. Most of the time you can get away with it, but if you kill a piece of equipment while overclocking, there's no one to blame but yourself. That's the chance you take when you overclock. This is hardly Intel's fault. I know people these days don't want to accept responsibility for anything, but in this case no one else is responsible.

Your post doesn't make much sense. First of all, all overclocking always voids warranties. Most manufacturer's will replace things if you open the case as a failure, and not tell them you fried the chip with overvoltage. Secondly, memory speed can't do damage. The only way memory can do damage is excessive voltage on the memory frying out the IMC on the CPU, which is something you need to be careful about. Sounds like you don't know enough about overclocking to be doing it. And I'm not trying to leap to Intel's defense here, I'm using a Phenom II at the moment.

it's confusing because it was an intel not amd being blown lol, had both and in real life performance AMD wins big time :) these benchmarks are meant as a guide really, but hey you can always pay a 1000+ for a shmintel for that extra 20% in performance gain, your money lol

A lot of other reviews from sites are flooding in posting similar results. Intel looks like it's going to hold the performance crown for most people, since I don't know of an every-day situation in which I put 8 cores to work. Makes me wonder if I should even consider upgrading to an AM3+ from my old AM2+ board if the processor upgrade path isn't a huge upgrade.

Also, to the reviewer, most of your graphs include an i5-"23500k OC" instead of the 2500k(?). I'm sure you were just pressed for time to get the review posted, though, haha.

In my opinion its better to have FX8150 to future proof urself. the processor have yet to realize its true power when the supporting software are available to consume and utilize its all 8 cores and new instruction sets.

By the time the full performance of these CPUs is realized, there will be other CPUs available that will out perform Bulldozer. IMHO, this CPU is a big fail for AMD. I mean, an I5 is kicking it. Too bad, so sad.....

I've been overclocking since the IBM XT was out (got it from 4.7Mhz to 8.x Mhz), and I have yet to see a time when the supporting software caught up with the new instruction sets while I still had the "new" CPU. I was the first to get a 32-bit processor, waited years before NT technology took advantage of it, then my chip was old. I had the first AMD with 3DNOW, waited for games to support it, then my chip was old. I had the first 64bit processor, XP 64bit was a flop and had to wait for Vista 64, then my chip was old.

The only time this ever worked for me was with the i7 920. My longest running chip between upgrades, still have it three years later, blazing at 4.2Ghz with apps that can use it's cores.

I ran it with many open programs taking up over 4.5GB of ram. Some of the apps I had open were Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, ZoneAlarm, Avast--which I shut off for the test, but left the program loaded--Open Hardware Monitor, several utility gadgets, Speedfan, Foobar 2K, Firefox 6, and several more background apps. I don't know if that would make any difference, but I just wanted to list them in case. (I couldn't close out all my apps because I had open work in them. I didn't reboot or anything. I just downloaded it and ran it.)

Well, it looks like we'll have to wait once again for the prize fight between AMD and Intel. Not a bad fight from AMD, but once again, falls short of the prize. Since 2004 and x64 AMD has gotten its ass kicked by Intel every time, except in the price range. Ouch!

I own a business that builds PC's, gaming, work stations, servers etc. I personally own a couple of AM3 965 systems and an Intel Core i5 2500k. I built my Intel system back in January of 2011 (This year). I am not sure what AMD is thinking or doing but they really need to get out of the fish bowl and start creating some technology that comes close to their competitor. I used to be nothing but an AMD fan until the release of the Core 2 DUO series came out. AMD started getting an ass whoop about that time. AMD has a good mid-level price for all types of PC's but I think their fans want a crown. My 2500k rocks out at 4.1GHz all day and it is a beast. My AM3 965 Quad core is no slouch, but it does not hold a candle to my 2500k. AMD for the lose and may Intel have bragging rights for the next 2 years at least if not more.

Even if Bulldozer could somehow manage to keep pace with the Intel Core i5, you must consider that AMD's latest technology would still only be just-as-good as something now ten months old. It failed to do even that.

With their graphics segment barely breaking even, it's going to be difficult times for AMD.

It's one thing to have a great product but it's another to show up to the race track and perform in your new car only to find out you are 10 months late. But your at the line all by yourself so I guess you feel like your early because no one else is there.................right? Oh boy! On a positive note. I had a FX-60 back in the day and it was a fast bugger. I think the year was mid 2006. Seems kinda weird to bring back an old name. Maybe Intel should re-release the P4 so AMD can have a chance to say, "We kicked your ass once before!" lols

You pay for what you get, i do love AMD for their lovely Price to power, but intel will allways dominate as performance, but intels 980x is still quite alot for a HEXA core, however, Bulldozer is based with 8 cores, nuff said.

Yep, everything in that video is true. Note the game comparison against the 980X: it was at 2560x1600 resolution, and probably even a four-core AMD 975 Black Edition would have done as well, since at that resolution that video subsystem is the gating factor (as I mentioned in my review). The 8150 does beat the 2500 in Handbrake, and all AMD has to do is pick and choose their benchmarks to show the performance image they want...if you'll look at my benchmark chart you'll see many benchmarks where the 8150 dominates.

I was going to say, I could pick benchmarks all day long that would show AMD the better processor and Intel 2500k the better processor. I guess my biggest issue is this. AMD is late in releasing this processor. Those people who are true enthusiast's and want pure power will own an Intel, and that's just the way it is. I own a 6 core 1100T AMD machine but it is my backup gaming rig to my Intel 2500k machine. I wanted to buy a FX-8150 but at the price and the performance increase I'm more than likely going to have to hold out once again. When I built my AM3 1100T system, I let one of my colleges talk me out of my Core i7 950 system..............Boy was I a dumbass.

Intel's lead seems to grow with every release, pretty soon amd is going to get to a point where it can no longer recover. Can you imagine what hell would break loose if intel became the only cpu manufacturer? Without competition they would have little reason to keep designing new architectures, development would slow to a snails pace and unlocked multipliers would be a thing of the past.

This all sounds a bit fatalist, but suffice to say the outlook is far from good.

When you consider the price point of the chip, shouldn't you also take a gander at the current crop of motherboards that support it as well? In the price battle between a 2500k setup and an FX-8150, I think AMD has a clear win. I'll also say that time spent doing something like converting between video formats in handbrake is more meaningful to me than integer vs. floating point...to be honest, once I'm at the performance level of either the 8150 or the 2500k, then there are very few benchmarks other than that which would give me pause or produce noticeable differences in my experience...would anyone else care to comment on specific tasks where you could immediately discern the differences? I'm an occasional gamer and frequently use document creation software, as well as some transcoding/streaming apps.

One of the things I've noticed about current Intel chipsets, as implemented by Tier 1 motherboard vendors, is the SPLIT that occurs with the integrated 6G SATA ports: often, the Intel chipset supports maybe 2 or 4 native 6G ports, and 2 or 4 more 6G ports are handled by third-party controllers. This imposes less flexibility whenever a designer wants to have fast storage -AND- save money by doing so withOUT add-on RAID controllers. If one wants a RAID with 4 members + other storage devices, all controlled by the chipset, the 990FX appears to be a better choice. Of course, this should change when Intel's X79 arrives, but that chipset is also expected to come with a price premium -- not the least of which is the cost of a new LGA2011 Intel CPU.

Well sure, unless you're using an under-powered graphics card there's rarely a time that the CPU does much work in video games. PC video games generally depend on the GPU for all of their performance, not the CPU.

Are there any articles on your site where you delve into this? I see so many comments (on this website and others) where people talk about how they go for such-and-such high-end processor for their "gaming rig", it's obviously a widespread misconception. A particularly useful article would be one that investigates just *how* bad/cheap a CPU can get before it starts to really affect gaming performance. I have visions of Athlon dual-cores paired with GTX 580s in my head...

I've seen that article - it is a good article. I will try to be more precise: I am curious, not about how to build a decent machine for low cost, but about the technical limit for an acceptable CPU for a "gaming" computer. Ideally this would be an investigation of varying-quality CPUs combined with top-end equipment in the other categories of system construction for the purpose of figuring out just how much you could skimp on the CPU before it starts to noticeably hamper the gaming experience. This would be the sort of article to put an end to the marketing-driven idea that you must have an i7-2600k or FX-8150 to experience good performance, and more importantly to educate as to what level of CPU would actually be sufficient.

Exmples of questions I am curious about: would a Single-Core AMD processor running at 2GHz be sufficient?Would a Dual-Core Athlon processor? Would a Dual-Core Sandy Bridge? Do these lower cost parts degrade the effectiveness of high end GPUs like the GTX 580 or AMD 6970 such that those high-end GPUs practically require high-end CPUs to match?etc, etc...

I think I'd choose a quad-core processor because, as seen in the referenced article, there are situations in which it makes a significant difference. With an AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition going for a mere $130, it's a cheap way to ensure the best performance from multiple-card systems, or systems running at high resolutions.

Farnsworth Worthington: Just speaking from experience and I should be ashamed for not posting my experiences and builds online. If you are looking for a budget build PC and want some head room for gaming then you have a few choices from both AMD & Intel that will not break the bank. The majority of budget gaming rigs built all use an AMD processor. Recently I built a budget system right in the $500 range with more than adequate performance parts using a AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GH Processor, an ASUS M5A87 AM3+ AMD 870 Motherboard, 8gig of G-Skill Memory, 500gig WD Blue Hard Drive, 585watt PSU, EVGA 550Ti GPU. I have not ran any benchmark tests yet as time is very constraining lately with getting machines out there. But I will say this, Battlefield Bad Company 2 plays on high settings at 1920x1080 & 1920x1200. Battlefield 3 Beta Played the same. Both games yielded 40+ FPS in Online Gameplay and that is enough for a great gaming experience. Again there are many other builds a person can configure this is just the one I found that is easy on the pocket and provides some good performance while giving the end user a Quad Core PC that is better than what the average gamer is using. If your budget is $500 I stick to AMD products, if your Budget is $750+ I stick to Intel. You do get more performance with Intel over AMD on top tier procs but then you also pay out the arse for it (as everyone should know by now). Do you need the 980x Intel Processor? Or do you want it? If your rich then reach for the stars and I would gladly help you get there :)

But what is the "minimum" FPS. That's the most important measurement, since low FPS can cause stuttering and really ruin the gaming experience. What I mean is that if you can run 40FPS average, but every time you get fired on or a blast goes off your FPS drop to 15, that's not going to work.

Doug Dallam: My apologies. When I list a FPS I always list the lowest, never the average, for the same reason you stated. And to be honest the lowest score on Battlefield 3 (Beta) was 41fps and in Bad Company 2 44fps. And for those of you who didn't know, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is very processor intensive so it is a good test game. If I remember corectly the averages were in the mid 50's for both games and reached highs of 70+ but that was in empty servers only. My point I guess is that if you have a system hitting a low 40fps, your getting some pretty good entertainment online :)

exactly, the minimum fps are making the problem:/ world of tanks 9-29fps...arma 2 online 5-70fps. for over 200 bugs ?? on AMD x3 4553.9Ghz i run world of Tanks 48-75arma 2 17-37fps. the low fps are important. this unit is working like would be stuck. by the way after 4 days od having it its running on 4.1Ghz still (no tubrocore) its more stabil- in the stock relase is has ben traic. im to lazy to bring it back to shop.

I just did this, I now own a 2500k and a 6950 video card. Before the 2500k I had a 6000+ amd overclocked (can not remember to what)with the 6950 card. In a simple game like World of Tanks I would get about 20-35 fps on highish settings. With the 2500k and everything cranked out I get 145 fps.

Not saying that even close to 60% of my 2500k is used, just saying the old card hamstringed my video card hard.

A review well worth of the time spend, thanks David. There isn't much to say really as you've touched all corners. Except the fact that not all the transecoding apps are as optimized for more than 4/6 threads as we used to believe them to be.

If anyone happens to hear word of FX-8000 running on a Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5, be sure to let me know! I wouldn't upgrade my motherboard for this, but I'd get it in a heartbeat if it dropped in to my board. Otherwise I'm waiting for either Ivy or Piledriver.

Game performance doesnt scale with extra cores , but the 8150 looks like a good call for many productivity tasks . I think AMD created a great server architecture , and then have tried to get it working harder on fewer cores for the enthusiast .For gamers the 4170 or 4100 may be the best value, and produce the highest frame rates .

If you want to know how little processor you need to run games, choose your video card and then contact the car manufacturer and ask them what level CPU you need to take full advantage of the card. There is a point where you won't get anymore FPS from a card due to CPU limitations. For instance, I had a AMD X64 4800 and I got no increase in FPS going from an nVidia 7800GTx to an nVidia GTX260. the CPU was the limiting factor.

Well, if you want to know if you are cpu limited, that's quite easy:Downclock your gfx card with the driver utility (CCC for ATI° to half it's frequency and run 3dmark11. Check graphic score.Increase the gfx card freq by 10%, run 3dmark11 and check gfx score.Do so until you reach either a constant gfx score in 3dmark11 (cpu limited) or you max card clock (not cpu limited).

If one looks at Cray's use of the Opterons in the supercomputers that it builds, one would have to say that AMD tech has some advantages. Also, lookiing at the instruction set tests that were done, it is fairly obvious to me that it is the tests that are lacking rather than the processor. In W8, I suspect that the 8150 will outperform the 2500k in most aspects. There iks clearly also something wrong with the memory bandwidth tests, which I suspect has to do with the cache fill rate design of the tests. If I were putting money into a medium priced system now that would stand up for a longer period of time, I would probably go with the 8150. Also, the additional PCI-e lines will go a long ways towards future-proofing the system for various types of high speed IO like USB3. Since Intel always has a big lead in instruction optimization in compilers, most tests, unless they are hand coded, will not reach parity on the AMD instruction sets for a year or more. Even then, there are a lot of companies that will not make use of those optimizations, preferring to get brownie points with Intel by so doing...or they are just lazy. Yes, that means that in the real world, Intel will continue to dominate,m but that does not mean that the domination is due to superior technology.

I would like to believe that AMD spent tremendous R&D with developing this new CPU architecture, and that is why performance is not epic this time around. I don't think many people realize this. Now that the design is mastered, now it's time to scale up the single-threaded performance (piledriver CPU)!

Here's a thought. Since AMD whipped the Intel's ass back in 2004, but since has been getting its lama whipped, consider that with each passing year AMD has offered CPUs that are--wait for it--slowly catching up to the penultimate performance of Intel. They've already shown they can out perform Intel in price to power ratios. If I were Intel, I'd be concerned, not scared, but definitely taking AMD as a serious competitor. And, I'm sure Intel does just that.

Think about it this way too. Bulldozer is AMDs first real change, on par with Sandy Bridge, in a while, and they are already near top performance of Intel. Now, I said near, not there. But Bulldozer is the first iteration of a whole new approach to CPU development by AMD that current OS's don't support or don't support well. (The same thing happened with SSDs and Windows, if you remember.)

How well will Bulldozer technology scale compared to Intel's? We'll just have to wait and see. AMD has been playing catch-up in the desktop speed market, and now their right on the heels of their competition.

I've been waiting for awhile through many good deals on Sandy Bridge to see what Bulldozer would do.

Disappointed to say the least, especially at AMD's releasing something right out of the gate AGAIN that needs fixing and optimization to work on already existing software.

I skipped Phenom I because it was a pig and stuck with older AM2 dual core tech that did a very good job for the price, then upgraded to Phenom II when it intro'd in January '09 and was very satisfied.

Now we have a processor meant more for server applications IMO than desktop... having suffered through delays and mis-marketing only to find out it performs badly in many areas on CURRENT software is not encouraging to say the least.

AMD, I'm NOT a guinea pig...I won't buy a CPU that needs further refinement to realize it's full potential, nor will I buy a "testbed" for future technology.

Get it right like Intel did with Core2, Nehalem and Sandy Bridge, get it right like you did with the old AMD 64 stuff...but don't make statements like " will perform 50% better than i7 and Phenom II" only to have it fail like it did.

Back to Intel I go, for an i5-2500K with stellar performance for $60 US less.

Isn't Intel's i7 their power horse for consumer desktops or was this bench test to compare equivalent priced CPU's? Because the way I see it AMD built the FX-8150 to compete with that. Plus, the i7 doesn't have built in graphics to get in the way of per calculations. That would have been a better head to head. Unless I missed something.

The Blender test was not quite convincing. Would be interesting to see if the result is the same on Linux or Windows 7 can't handle the new architecture. Should be tested with optimized builds too to see the real performance of the CPUs.

What did you not find convincing about the Blender results? I haven't looked at the source and don't know if it could even use the new AVX and XOP instructions...but in any case we lack the resources to try to do custom builds of the benchmarks for which source code is available.

True, probably impossible to find any software optimized for the latest CPUs. Chips become obsolete when the software fully utilizing them appear. But testing them on different operational systems may be useful. I think another problem with Bulldozer is that it was developed as a server architecture and maybe it's not the best choice for desktop systems. A few months or years later we will be wiser about it.

Think you all sid it clearly, when saying you were hoping the DullDozer would stand up and over the 2500K....I'll give you that you did your best to cripple the 2500K....let's just run some benchmarks on the 8150 and 2500K with both of them at 4.2 GHz and running 1866 DRAM (and how about 16GB).......rather than run at stock 3.3 for the 2500K and 3.6 for the 8150, and why the 1333 DRAM for the 2500K vs 1866 for the 8150 or better yet let's throw 2133 at both of them........it's rather simple the 8150 at $30 more just doesn't stand up.....which is why it's DULL....If you just want to run top of the line vs top of the line can provide a fairly long list of Intel CPUs that put's the dulldozer to shame. If you are going to run BMs, lets run real life scenarios, not these overly BIASED pro AMD games you call BMs

Yes it 'matches' for for less money, but when run at an equal speed (3.6) and with equivilent DRAM freq (1866) in other word set up equally, it blows the 8150 away.....I also ran test on the 8150 when it was initially released, and thankfully most honest reviewers looked and tested equally, not giving an advantage to AMD. Many also touched on the continued poor MC of the AMD - consumers should be provided with real world results, not 'results' that are biased toward an inferior product.

Please explain how running each processor at stock speeds and the highest officially supported memory frequency is "giving an advantage to AMD". Your "real world" comparison is specious since it depends on overclocking both the processor and memory, which only a tiny fraction of users ever do. And, of course, overclocking performance is never guaranteed, which is why no review site out there tests CPUs the way you think they should be tested.

Agreed. Nothing wrong with showing a comparison of standard spec speeds. Furthermore, I fail to even see the sense of matching speeds, as if they are equivalent architectures and pipelines. Running the 2500k at 3.6 is an overclocked case, so why should I stop the FX-8150 at a measely 3.6? Would it be unfair for me to run it at 5GHz under a water loop if the 2500k doesn't make it that far?

I think this article did an adequate job of showing that the 8150 is barely a 2500k competitor, and in my humble opinion, far overpriced for that reason. AMD usually had the edge in performance/$. In that case, it should be priced below the 2500k, not above it. Looks like they are hoping the marketing advantage of calling it an 8-core will win over the poorly informed. At this rate, I'll be buying Ivy Bridge to replace my Phenom II.

If not going to Bench then at the same speed why not bench against the closest comparable speed (GHz) chip? The 2600K is closer and the 2700K is closer yet, yet both would utterly put the Dull Dozer to shame, these are all unlocked CPUs so why NOT show them at an equivalent 'speed'.

"overclocking both the processor and memory, which only a tiny fraction of users ever do"

Be sort of stupid to buy a 2500K if your not going to OC it, even most that buy the stock 2500 use turbo charge to OC it, which is OCing. Further if it doesn't matter (OCing), why have a section of the review on just that.

"What, you want I should rag on them some more?"

Were't they advertising the Dozer as the chip that would equal or better Intel's chips, yet they are still behind Sandy Bridge, even further behind Sandy Bridge E and Ivy Bridge is around the corner. If AMD put a little more money into R&D and developed a good MC (Memory Controller) they'd have a much better product, but then too prices would go up, and as is with the Dozer the PP (price point) is already yto high for the performance delivered....which is why it is Dull

We test CPUs at their stock clock speeds with their highest officially supported memory speeds, because that's what the manufacturer guarantees they'll work at. 95+% of any CPU's sales are in pre-built systems like Dell, HP, etc. that are not only never overclocked but in most cases CAN'T be overclocked.

We overclock the CPU being tested to get an idea of the extra performance an enthusiast can unlock. Results are never guaranteed and a comparison of overclocked speeds of all CPUs might be interesting to some people but would have virtually no ral-world relevance.

And, for what it's worth, AMD never advertised the Bulldozer as something that would "equal or better Intel's chips." I spent a full day in Austin at AMD's Bulldozer tech conference and the most they said is that it would be performance-competitive with the 2500K, which it is.

Didn't you all do a review on the 980X a bit ago, and test it with 1600 sticks? Believe it's, let me check, yep rated at 1066 and you also used a 2600K i think w/ 1600, it's rated 1333....But never mind, Also saw a 'review' on Mushkin 2133 sticks where you tested it agains 1600 and 1866 sticks, guess you all like Mushkin

No need to reply, I'm gone, I'll stick with sites that ACTUALLY perform reviews that are objective rather than w/ bias. And just a note, if you actually want to get truer results it would be best to test with sticks that are based on what you want.....i.e. if you want to test with rated 1333 sticks get a set of 1333 sticks with JEDEC rated timings, don't take high performance 2133 sticks rated for CL7 and dump them down to 1333 and raise the CL to 9, even JEDEC 8-8-8-24 is slow for these.

Almost forgot, when benching anything, why would you use G. Skill F3-17066CL7D-4GBPIS sticks (rated 2133 at CL7) on either system at CL9, whether 1333, 1866 or anything else. It makes no sense at all, though at 1866 if you ran these at CL6 or CL7 the AMD may have choked on them

I am sure that the bulldozer is not a miss, because applications still not optimized enough for him and his time is coming...I have my Athlon 64 X2 Brisbane 5000+ Black edition and he is still good. Personally i dont like much intel processors because they want to make a monopol and AMd is only border who can stop that so give the bulldozer a time and you will see...

I really hope all that you are saying is right, Ivan. Let us hope that the bulldozer can and will be a good competetor for the Intel product in the future or that we at least get another one to come out and make intel keep up with the times instead of spoon feeding us with eyedropper on technology. If AMD was not here, we would still only be using P4s or maybe p5s now with single cores and overclocks in the 3's

That is the most important thing about everything, trust me "enigma" I really want for my words to became a truth...Remember this,when a "bulldozer" construction machine came to an obstacle, it needs time to blow everything away but at the end, Bulldozer always finish it job :-)and wins ;-) :-)

Really? Sounds like you are not very good at shopping for (or comparing) components. The $270 FX-8150 is the best chip AMD can currently field, which is matched in performance by the $220 i5-2500k. So clearly the Intel CPU does not cost $600. In fact, in this specific case, Intel actually offers a price advantage. If you are buying a $600 Intel CPU, the performance would be far greater performance than the 8150. Even if the Intel Motherboard is a little more expensive, the fact that the processor is $50 cheaper offsets that price difference.

Now, if you are talking about the Phenom II line of chips, I agree there are incredible bargains to be had. The 955 is a great value! But in terms of performance, it is not competitive. As always, its a matter of picking the components for the job at hand. If speed is what you need, Intel is the only game in town. If you want value, the OLD AMD lines are great bargains, but this new FX line is, imho, priced completely incorrectly. The FX-8150 should be cheaper than the 2500k, not more expensive.

As I said, it comes down to picking components for the job at hand. For those tasks you mentioned, AMD does offer a sufficient level of performance. But those are hardly the only tasks a computer is capable of doing. For professional video editing, transcoding, and highly computational tasks, price increases can be made up for with increased productivity. Just because the performance is good enough for entertainment purposes doesn't mean it is good enough for all purposes. Viewed through that lens, Intel is the only option for increasing performance beyond the 8150/2500K level.

And if it makes any difference, I am writing this from an Opteron 165, my main desktop is a Phenom II 955, and my mobile device is an E-450. But at this rate, my main desktop will be getting an Ivy Bridge update in the coming year, unless Piledriver is something that competes. That computer I use for extreme multi-tasking over 3 monitors worth of running programs, as well as Folding@home when I am away. So I have often hit with wall with my 4GHz trusty old Phenom. I'd have dropped in a FX series upgrade but my motherboard is only AM3 and does not support that chip. I'll need a new motherboard either way, so I'll most likely make it something LGA1155.

I look at it as a marketing blunder as well as a design issue. The definition of a what constitutes a core is debated to begin with. When they market the 8150 as an 8-core CPU and it generally performs worse than a 4-core 2600K, many people will see this as 4-cores beating 8-cores. Had it been marketed as a quad core with an AMD branded version of hyper-threading, it might have looked like less of a disaster. I don't think it's a BAD CPU, but, given all the hype and anticipation, it is a let down to be sure. I have placated myself by looking at it as AMD's answer to HT, and not as AMD's attempt to overtake Intel in the performance desktop space, although, I think this CPU would do well enough in the more heavily threaded applications I often work with and it might do well in servers. Can anyone direct me to any kind of indication how these chips run on Linux powered machines, just out of curiosity?

The FX-8150 is really just a repurposed Opteron processor (in the same way that the Sandy Bridge Extreme CPUs are repurposed Xeons). Servers have different workloads than consumer systems, and benefit more from the parallelism provided by multiple cores. Consumer machines tend to run less highly threaded applications and benefit more from high instructions per clock and high clock speeds.

Given the growth of "the cloud", it's not surprising that Intel and AMD are putting so much effort into server processor design. But remember both companies have very strong consumer CPUs: Intel's original Sandy Bridge and forthcoming Ivy Bridge processors, and AMD's "Fusion" CPUs (even if enthusiasts sneer at them, Fusion CPUs are perfect for 90+% of the market).

All that said, I do think your idea of introducing the FX-8150 as a four-core CPU with some AMD brand of Hyper-Threading would have been a great idea for AMD.

I think the reason for people being disappointed is the hype. There's always been a bit of fanboi-ism between amd and intel camps with the release of each new chip. People couldn't just be happy to wait and see how everything played out, they jumped on the hype train and missed the target by quite a bit. Just like intel got dumped on for the prescott design, it's amd's turn. Wasn't too long ago i recall all the amd fanboi's strutting around bragging on bulldozer, how it was going to wipe the floor with sandy bridge. Now having to accept the harsh reality is a bit rough to swallow for them.

Real world benchmark test. All the reviews I have read use a configuration for Intel and AMD and the same test are run in a single process environment gathering data for the results. Then either one or the other wins. I would like to see a benchmark test of Handbrake running in the background rendering a HD movie to HardDisk. On my current system this takes about an hour. Then, running these other benchmarks program in the foreground. Then compare the numbers. This would represent a realworld test of multitasking. I personnaly like to run Handbrake rendering my HD movies to Hard Disk. And play games or surf the web at the same time. My current Intel 4 core processor struggles with this. This is the prime reason I have been considering the AMD Bulldozer. All the reviews says it is better at mutlitasking while the Intel I5 is generally faster. Which one is better at multitasking?

In "Media Encoding Benchmarks" he ran the Handbrake and X264 benchmarks in foreground, what was running in background? When he was running his gaming test in foreground, what was running in background? He states in this section that Bulldozer will do a better job than Intel, but what are the number. How much better? I am suggesting he kick off Handbrake in back ground, then kick off the gaming test in foreground and check the numbers.

Thanks for you comments. I think if anyone check they would find the average user these days are multi-taskers on their computers. They would also find these people are the majority of the consumer market. The gamers need a jet that will do machII, the casual user needs a Hundi to surf the internet, and the multi-taskers need 3 jets that will almost do machI in three different directions at the same time from one machine. Most buy more computer than they need or upgrade to something that is very powerful but won't accomplish what they really want. Primarily becasue all these review are based on the GAMER who OC's and wants to achieve MachIII from his MachII machine.

good theory but i'm a gamer who wasn't interested in multitasking i've built a FX bulldozer 8120 Radeon HD 6950 2gb ddr5 16 gb ddr3 1666 mhz. and as it turns out since I've been able to multitask I've been using this machine to much more of its capability the thing is though i could have installed the I5 and i suspect though on a whole it doesn't perform as well as the bulldozer i wouldn't be able to see any differentiating results. I'm a gamer and by rights I should have bought an I5 however I'm also english which means i love the underdog I cannot resist an heroic second lol. It doesn't matter whether you buy a FX 8120-8150 I5 or I7 the chances are you will love the result for what you want to do just do me a favour and chuck 1000w minimum psu in and 16gb of ddr3.

Well Stoney the gamer turning/turned multi-tasker, thanks for confirming my theory and welcome to the multi-tasking world. Thanks also for confirming my gut feel that the bulldozer is better at multi-tasking. I built this machine in 97, its a triple sli with triple gt580s and the intel core 2 quad 2.66. It is a jet that does machII. And, you are right about the video gaming card. This machine just doesn't multi-task very well when I crank up Handbrake. Most people use Prime95 to stress test their machine, but it won't run this machine @ 100% capasity constantly for an hour. I use Handbrake to stress test this one. By the way I don't think the bulldozer is the underdog, I just think AMD is not marketing it correctly. If they would start showing off its multitasking abilities, instead of trying to compete with I5/I7 speed, they would do alot better on the market.

Well im definitely still a gamer i just with all my previous systems i was laboriously shutting down anything that may interfere with the system performance while i was gaming and now I've set up with dual monitor i'm finding no end of multiple uses for this system and at no point does it over stretch itself. Also the Windows 7 update from microsoft that uses (SMT) correctly gives between 1 - 5 % increase in performance across the board and they're expecting another 10 - 15% when programmers start using it. And yes i think your right about AMD's marketing they have been incredibly focused on beating Intel however most bench-tests i've seen the new I7 is miles ahead however its also around 850 pound a chip.

Yea, I was in denial about a year and half ago, thinking I was a gamer. That's why I upgraded to the triple sli gt580's, so I could take as much load as possible off my cpu while gaming. Just so I wouldn't have to shut down other processes. Then about a year ago when I started downloading my dvd's for my htpc's and had to stop my gaming for these processes. I finally realized Iam a multitasker that loves to game. Anyway I appreciate all the info on your bulldozer experience, it has helped alot. I know what you mean about the I7 cost, that's why I have been researching the bulldozer so heavily. Again, thanks for you help.

Thanks for the review. When you wrote it i'd like to bet you where expecting this kind of debate and it has been fun, people are now talking about differences that they will never really notice in real world situations i like to stick to the fact that the FX8120 (which im using) is a more than adequate CPU for the price tag and has served me well so far. Cheers for this i've learnt more about CPU's in this last couple of weeks than at any other time in my life (pretty sure i could design one now lol).

Also one last thing the windows 7 update for SMT has now been released im currently running it and so far so good.

looking at pc format issue 261 the FX 8150 beats the I5 on every benchmark test except FPS in gaming where the I5 only just takes the lead, according to these graphs the only processors better is the I7. For what you want to do the FX8150 is perfect and an excellent price to boot.

I have the FX 8120 and i have to say i do use it for gaming and i find it amazing at multitasking I can run Battlefield 3 with as many programs as i want running in the background and the system has never got over 50% cpu usage.

Although i suspect that if i built the exact same spec of system with the core I5 visually as a user i doubt i would notice much if any difference, the fact remains that battlefield 3 is incredibly system intensive and the 8120 is a very powerful chip when it comes to multitasking.

Manu2B: Maybe you should do some checking before making a claim like that, because you're wrong. I own the game, and see that it uses 50% of all eight CPU cores on an Intel Core i7-930 with 12GB DDR3 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590. That?s as CPU-intensive as they come.

very true it is GPU intensive you are right however modern games do use a hell of alot of cpu power as well they have to network they usually need something horrible like steam to run (which eats resources) they have to handle predictive technology which lowers the lag problems these things and many more use cpu power rather than gpu then you run loads of other entertaining things on your second monitor and the draw increases. I understand what your saying but the only thing (and its a biggy) that the gpu does is run your output.

Bad overclock review. The memory will only benefit from higher NB speeds which either requires a bump on the NB or the system clock. The system clock will help lower latencies where NB will improve bandwidth.

Was glad to see, after numerous back and forth with AMD they have changed to specs to better reflect the CPU's capabilities of Native DRAM being 1333, and support for faster DRAM is 'UP TO 1866' and that is limited to 1 DIMM per channel without voiding the warranty.

Honestly why bother overclocking a processor when it runs sweet as a nut at its designed settings. I will not damage my rig and it will last me for another 6 years, my Opteron 180 was put to sleep today, and I upgrade with this FANTASTIC processor with 16 gb of AMD ram...

One thing AMD have got that Intel does not have, is I have a seem less system with all AMD spec equipment, that works really well together, along with the AMD chipset and ATI 6850 graphics card, intel will never be able to do that AMD have done.

Create a cheap gaming machine for under £550 using only AMD / ATI components. ;)

To be honest. i7,i5, iWhatever... amd fx-####, phenom II, amd Whatever. No offense guys. but did you ever stop to think about the benchmark not exactly using what a game would be using? when you think about algorithms and architecture. sorry this bulldozer is a complex piece of work. dont think im a huge amd fanboy. got an i7 940 @ 4.0ghz. also this fx-8150 at 4.5ghz on a cheap h70 liQ system. the i7 still goes for around $330... the amd... got it for $229... Now! iThink OVER-FKN PRICED FOR A CPU. Look. windows 7 does support ALL 8 CORES. it says it in your task manager. One graph per cpu! 8 Graphs... its working. If you could keep this cpu pinned @ 100% playing ONE game. I will give you a cookie. Now. Lets go over this. save money... Buy a new GPU! so lets all put the rulers down. besides ya'll had the wrong side of the ruler. The Graphics card is MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE LITTLE DIFFERENCE IN PROCESSING PERFORMANCE IN THIS CPU! Get this cpu.. it is well worth it. INVEST IN A ROG THUNDERBOLT BOARD FROM ASUS SUPPORTING THE AM3+... the thunderbolt offloads your cpu of the jibberish of processing audio and networking packet flow. HENCEFORTH... your little disadvantage with a lower "benchscore" just became your advantage. Dont care what anyone says. audio can cause the next cpu cycle to become ms's late. meaning... you shoot... loud noise... render audio... s#it forgot to send the bullet.. i shot a blank. This happens on both intel's and amd's. learned from battlefield bad company 2 and bf3... Go optical spdif using Dolby digital Live. Save a few soldiers while your at it with your defib. take out a tank with the repair tool after shooting the guy trying to repair it. snipe from afar with the GOL and get 300+ marksman bonus from a perfect headshot. Your cpu can only do so much to begin with. Stop bashing cpu's focus on the ENTIRE BUILD not just the cpu. besides... we all know. MY CPU IS FASTER THAN YOURS.

o... by the way. the ROG BOARD i was speaking of above... is $309 on newegg. look up the crosshairVformula w/ thunderbolt. Not everyone has a digital receiver or home theatre system. lol got mine from the goodwill for $30. didnt need spectacular sound... needed to see my bullet got there first.

With the upcoming price drops coming for the FX, these AMD chips are a great deal for Lightwave users. Rather than rendering a single frame at a time with multiple threads, you are far better off running a separate screamernet instance (rendering app)for each. You render 8 frames at once and push each core to 100%.

As many people have said and or complained about the AMD vs Intel issues with prices and performance, not sure if anyone has really pointed it out, and I do not know everything nor am I a wise guy, but just to state a fact to everyone out there so everyone knows and understands, Quote from Wikipedia "AMD licensed its x86-64 design to Intel, where it is marketed under the name Intel 64. As Intel licenses AMD the right to use the original x86 architecture (upon which AMD's x86-64 is based), these rival companies now rely on each other for 64-bit processor development.Should this agreement collapse, AMD would no longer be authorized to produce any x86 processors, and Intel would no longer be authorized to produce x86-64 processors, forcing it back to the x86 architecture. However, the agreement provides that if one party breaches the agreement, it loses all rights to the other party's technology, while the other party receives perpetual rights to all licensed technology. In 2009, AMD and Intel settled several lawsuits and cross-licensing disagreements, extending their cross-licensing agreements for the foreseeable future and settling several anti-trust complaints."

My opinion would be that Intel may have to charge more because of some of this but AMD should get some credit. And most of us probably could care less about a 32 bit, (if you ask me - they should be extinct!) but where would Intel be? AMD could Rule! Anyway- everyone thank AMD for that bad ASS I5 2500K, it should have the name AMD on it, I am sure they both deserve credit, and two good ideas made what we have now. AMD makes their own processors more than likely while Intel takes a good AMD and soups it up with their works. Maybe!.

Everything that is written here has some points, but do not be stupid please , Without strong AMD Intel would easily became a monopol whore which will takes our money for nothing, this I - series of them would be the same now and ten years in future for bigger money so tell where is sense in that. This I write like a simple man, and like a AMD fan I could write this...AMD is like hurt animal nobody knows when he could throw out something that is going to kick some Intel ass just wait and you are going to see...

well, I have the 8150 along with 16GB RAM dual channel and I use it for music production.It works just fine and more from what I had befor core 2 duo intel 4GB RAM.On my old comp I ran Reason 6 a music program that ate up my CPU usage up to 90% on a decent size song add more tracks and fx and it is too slow and crashes. but now 8150 I had 4 projects up and it was at 57%.It works great for what I am doing and have no issues.reason I like it because it was a good price along with the motherboard and spent more on RAM and a nice full size case.for what I do I wouldnt know the difference if I had Intel except for the price of the CPU and motherboard.

Ok then you try and multitask with your I5 when I mean multitask do what I do with my 8150, your INTEL will not be able to hold a candle to the multitasking properties of the AMD 8150, AMD's have always been better at this then INTEL, I can run a game, while decoding a film in the background, have some music playing and have even more Rar's unpacking then I have ever seen on any intel build, they still suffer from the same problems. Benchmarks really do not show what this processor can do, they did not on my old Opteron, however when my friends came round and saw what I did on that machine, compared to there core duos... I have always said the benchmark softwares are setup more for Intel processors then any other make. Need I remind you of the Geforce tweak they have on 3dMark to give them a better score...

As the review notes, I used the SpecAPC Lightwave script. This script runs a standard Lightwave installation and was developed in co-operation with Newtek. According to the description of the benchmark, "The benchmark puts special emphasis on processes that benefit from multi-threaded computing, such as animation, OpenGL playback, deformations, and high-end rendering that includes ray tracing, radiosity, complex textures and volumetric lighting." In my own experience it seems to keep the cores pretty busy.

If you're really interested, you can download the trial version of Lightwave and the Spec APC scripts and run the benchmark yourself.

I am still going to get this system, as my 939 Opteron is now struggling a little, so this will be my next build, I will not buy INTEL due to there DIRTY TRICKS against AMD, that put me off, it always puts me off, thats also why I am a fan of VIRGIN rather than BA, if you play dirty, then you will not have my business... I know AMD have not been no top for some time, however lets look at what they have done for the industry, they still look after their customers better than INTEL, and for me I have not had to upgrade for over 6 years... That is pretty amazing, also lets not forget that Windows 7 does not utilise all of the processor's instructions, so will we see a boost with Windows 8? I do feel its worth buying if your over due an upgrade like me, however if you have an older 6 core AMD, not worth it at this time, however I am sure AMD will release a newer model very soon... ;)

I have had this processor for about 3 weeks and I am blown away by its performance, I bought it for multiboxing with Eve Online accounts, and I can happily run 10 accounts with no issue and it rarely goes over 42% cpu load. The only time I have managed to max it out was when I did some video conversions and even then it performed faultlessly.

I am about to add a solid state hard drive to my build, did you also go for the AMD memory aswell, its the first time I have used any other make, I used to use crucial for any of my builds, being a computer technician, I will only use quality components that I would use on my own computer... Lets put it another way, I have NEVER had a refund on any of my builds!!!

One more thing pad what score have you got on the WIN 7 guide and did you overclock?

Are u guys crazy or what? Who r u to comment on Intel or AMD ? Just comment or discuss on the pros and cons of the related topic, why to waste time ? Please give ur opinion on the performance of the processors, this is what we r here for .......... "RIVIEWS", and not AMD vs Intel. Sorry for my behavior.

First off i am running the 8120 not the 8150 but i have it over clocked to 4.8 and my scores running these test r high some over 10 to 15% higher then his over clock for one i am using the standard 2133 not the 1869 memory thats what amd said to use not the 1869 so dont know where u r getting this but still i run cinebench at 8.05 and alot of my aida64 extreme edition sores r higher to have not done any coding test but i well i soon as i can find the free ones but still i thing alot of these sights r running memory lower then what amd is calling for and that why some of these test r coming up different then what i have so run some benchmarks using the recommeded memory please i have yet to see a website run ddr3 2133 on the chips thanks

As another reader explains, these tests were done with an early production motherboard from ASUS with a very early BIOS. It's likely the scores would be higher now that vendors have had some months to fine-tune them.

I dont know about that but my mother board suports ddr3 2400 but was a bit higher in coast dont know why u say they dont suport ddr2133 mine is runnning fine with ddr 2133 sense my mother board suports it the cpu should to right or am i wrong about that because its running at 2133 whem i do my memory test all test say ddr3 2133.

k sorry for the punctuation i just type dont prof read lol but why would they not recommand using 2133 or 2400 if it makes the scores go up higher and i read on some forum that they was saying to use the 2133 think it was toms hardware but still if it gives u better scores why not use it

I actually can't tell the difference when it comes to day to day activities between the two. They both game great and they both are fast. One thing I like over my AM3+ Board is that the Intel Z68 chipset offers HDD+SSD Hybrid and it does make a difference. I am currently using a 256gig SSD and I have allocated 64gig SSD Cache for my Samsung 2TB HDD and the bench mark shows it to be about 2.5 times faster. I can trasnfer a full 9gig movie file in about 6 seconds :) and that makes me happy. 1 thing I like about my AM3+ board is that there is more 6gb SATA ports and more USB options on my motherboards. IMO, both offer great things the only gripe I have is that my 8 core processor should be giving my 2700k a run for its money and its not. But in the end, I am happy.

I built an AMD based system with the FX-8150 at the heart of it all and I must say it turned out really nice. I use an ASUS M5A88-V EVO MB and have 8 GBs of 1866MHz (PC14900) RAM with a GTX 560 Ti FTW for the GPU. I use a cheaper heat sink, the Cooler Master Hyper 212, but I achieve great temperatures even when it's under a load. I can multitask to my hearts content and even run multiple HD games at the same time. I am impressed for less than 1,100 USD.

A year earlier I helped a friend build an intel based system with the i5 2500K processor. We used a P67 Revision 3 MB I believe. It has 8 GBs of 2.0GHz RAM but only uses a GT440 Series GPU. It can play all the games at high res with full detail just like mine. The only difference is, his system cost over 1,400 USDs to build. We searched Google Shopping, did all the comparisons and made sure to get the best price. His processor and MB were the most expensive items and were far more pricier than my MB and processor.

I believe that when it comes to personal gaming, AMD takes it with the FX-8150. It just had the price that everyone is looking for. If you are a loyal Intel fan and have the money to spend then you ARE making a good choice but for those of us who work for a living...we need those savings...period.

I'm running an Asus Crosshair MB with the 8 core Bulldozer and 32 Gigs of Ram! This chip is hyper threaded to 16 core, so no wonder it has room left over! I use it for Gaming and everything else I can throw at it and I haven't had any problems! I really don't put much weight into these tests they put on this chip because we really don't know the environment and testing conditions. Each test may be different from another, so all of you guys that are disappointed; unless you have the chip and know what it can do, then don't be. You really have to own it to know!

I'm glad you like your system, but the Bulldozer is in no way "Hyper threaded" and does not show 16 cores to the OS. Hyper threading is an Intel technology, and AMD does not use it, nor do they have anything like it.

Ok. You perform tests on page 14 of this review where you say you enabled single 'core' comparison, but disabled part of the AMD core! That's not even CLOSE to a single core comparison. The AMD 'core' is able to process 2 threads in real time instead of Intel's hyperthreading which uses a virtual thread. It's called BIASED offset, and is kinda like cheating. I am a DIEHARD Intel fan, but you are totally biased as hell against AMD. I do not care about what you claim as your professionl symbolism to 'uphold unbiased benchmarks', but for sure, I'm not going to use this site as a reference anymore simply because everyone is biased as hell round here. Thanks for the benchmark regardless.

and btw, you must compare architecture performance in all areas in order to perform an unbiased comparison. The runing of single threads in single cored capable of running multiple threads is really like comparing apples to oranges. Especially considering the new architecture is what makes the processor different.

Well, James, I suppose as a programmer with 30 years' experience I could engage you in an argument of precisely what constitutes a "core", but there are two points I think would make the case better than I can.

Point 1: AMD disagrees with you. That's why they promote the FX-8150 as an "eight core processor" rather than the "four core processor" it would be if they thought a Bulldozer module was a core as you do.

Point 2: Software disagrees with you. Single-threaded code will not magically re-arrange itself to run on the two integer execution units of a Bulldozer module; it will run on just one. Nor is there any setting or configuration you can tweak to make this happen.

No benchmark in the world will run on one Intel core and yet spread the load to run on all the resources of a Bulldozer module. And if such a benchmark did exist, it would be useless, since no other software works that way.

David, he's saying the whole single core comparsion is just retarded because in a 8-core optimized application, you can use 8 threads without juggling. And I'm guessing you haven't gotten very far in that 30 years of programming because I have 10 years and i'm already using more than 4 threads a couple of years ago.

Regardless of the doubtless wonderful code you're cranking out, the fact is that most consumer application code remains (primarily) single-threaded. This means that single-core performance is currently the most important aspect of CPU performance.

This is why it's important to compare single-core performance of the FX-8150 against Intel processors. I don't see why this is so hard to understand.

Of course any modern OS keeps dozens of threads going, so a multi-core CPU can help system responsiveness even if individual applications don't run any faster. AMD used to beat this drum when the weakness of their single core performance relative to Intel was brought up, but I haven't seen them do it lately.

what are you talking about? so you are saying consumer applications need the full power of i7 right now? 30 fps that's invisible to the naked eyes or around 40% increased performance on 8-core applications? I love the people who just get excited watching text on the screen that says 140 fps compare to a 110 fps machine. They really really make me laugh.

At the end of the day, look at the benchmarks: on average, the FX-8150 is slower than the 2500K, which has only half the cores, _because its per-core performance sucks_. Even in heavily threaded applications that scale linearly with the number of cores available, like CINEBENCH, the 8-core AMD chip can barely beat the 4-core Intel chip.

Again, just look at the benchmarks. I ran a lot of them, and the performance trend is very clear. AIDA64, CINEBENCH, SPECviewperf, SPECApc, media encoding, POVRay, Blender....all heavily multithreaded, and the FX still can't pull decisively ahead.

Performance isn't everything, of course. The FX platform has a lot more PCI-E lanes, and six native SATA 6G ports, so that's something to keep in mind.

And while the 8150 was $254 when I wrote this review, it's currently selling for $189 at Newegg...which should also tell you something: the 2500K price is actually _up_ a few dollars in that same time period.

At end of the day anybody that knows their stuff should conclude that FX-8150 is better with those numbers. Due to the fact that nothing in the market can make the difference between the i-series and FX's on a single-core useful, useless they only runs benchmarks or starts and shutdown their computers all day. It's like buying a gas-hog vs a prius, except there's no road that allow you to accelerate or go that fast in this case.

I refuse to just stare benchmark numbers all day and conclude that one processor is better than the other without thinking about what it actually mean. And thanks for people hyping the benchmark numbers in the wrong section, great cpu like the FX-8150 doesn't get as a great of sales number.

But I do appreciate for the numbers that people should really care about, if they actually considering about usage.

No i'm saying the 8-core advantage is more important than the 4-core disadvantage, as i metioned before. I don't understand why are we going in circle with this, are you just picking out what you want to read or you can't read any good comment about FX at all?

Shrug. I have tests that say otherwise, and I've used the 8150 as one of my personal systems ever since this review was published, so I'm very familiar with its performance relative to Intel systems. You can believe whatever you want.

Ok I am an official AMD reseller. What does that mean, means I get all the information that most people, even on sites like these do not get. AMD have admitted this processor is NOT as fast as they were hoping it would be, however what they have said. If you want a processor that can multitask then this is the processor for you. You can have 15 to 20 programs open, and it will not bog down, like some Intel proessors do. AMD have always led the way in multitasking, which is why, with Windows 8. This processor is the one to buy.

I dunno, Kirk...they tell us quite a lot. Last year, when Bulldozer was introduced, AMD flew me and a bunch of other reviewers to their Austin facility, where we received a full-day technical briefing on the new CPU. Not only were there the expected marketing people, but we also got detailed technical presentations and talks from project leaders and CPU architects. (There was also an impressive overclocking demo using liquid helium, because LN2 is for weenies.)

There were relatively few benchmarks, though, and no single-core benchmarks. In fact we were specifically asked not to run any single core benchmarks on the demo machines they had available.

We did get the "AMD CPUs excel at multitasking" spiel. This may well be true, but the problem with this claim is that it's very hard to quantify repeatably. I can run synthetic and real-world benchmarks all day long, and get repeatable results, which I can then use to compare the performance of the items I'm reviewing. But trying to quantify something like "System responsiveness seems better with the Bulldozer when running 18 background tasks" is kinda hard. How hard? Well, when asked, AMD couldn't offer a specific test scenario that would show this in a consistent fashion.

While I'm not an AMD fanboy per se, I still use the system I built to test this processor. It's outfitted with 8GB of AMD Black Edition qualified memory and a bespoke XSPC water cooling system, all in an AMD-themed Cooler Master HAF case I reviewed a couple of years ago. It's a powerful and visually impressive system (LED lightning, don't you know). It's overclocked and much faster than most user's machines, and I have no complaints at all about its performance, nor would almost anyone else.

That still doesn't change the fact that a system based on the Intel 2500K would be just as fast if not slightly faster, and with a higher spec Intel CPU, or an overclocked on, there would be no contest.

With the price cuts on Bulldozer it arguably has more bang for the buck than Intel, and things like the extra PCI-E lanes and SATA 6G ports a Bulldozer system offers are other things to consider. But there's no point in pretending that Intel doesn't decisively own the performance crown.

Kirk: we certainly appreciate your feedback, but I find your comment more than just a little condescending. Not only do I operate this website, but I am also an authorized AMD partner for my computer company. I can tell you first hand that you're getting the lightest possible marketing fluff from their sales team, and we're getting technical data that goes far beyond that. Furthermore, when you come and leave comments that downplay our knowledge on a topic in comparison to your superior sales experience, it's best to add some supporting facts and citation to back up your point.

I was not having a pop at the review, more at the people coming on here with facts and figures that cannot be true. We all know its a slower processor, however it is better for multitasking, then some other processors at the same speed. This has been proven...

For an all round gaming package you cannot beat an AMD machine. And its a lot cheaper to!

David: Say what exactly? I have no idea which part of my point you are referring to that's contridicting your tests. And please do tell me which aspect you felt AMD was short of on your personal systems, because I do have both setup as well. I'll test and I'll believe you. I have ran multiple heavy lifting programs on both and never I have felt one is better than the other.

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